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Reviews September 2018 $UFKLWHFWXUDO Seelow, AM, et al. 2018. Reviews September 2018. Architectural Histories, 6(1): 12, pp. 1–12, DOI: https://doi. +LVWRULHV org/10.5334/ah.334 REVIEWS Reviews September 2018 Atli Magnus Seelow, Angela Andersen, Christophe Van Gerrewey and Carmen Popescu Seelow, AM. Review of: Magnus Brechtken, Albert Speer. Eine deutsche Karriere, Munich: Siedler Verlag, 2017. Andersen, A. Review of: ΣΕΠΤΕΜΒΡΙΑΝA/September 55, Keller Gallery, Cambridge, MA, 2016; !f Istanbul Independent Film Festival, Istanbul, 2017. Van Gerrewey, C. Review of: Stedelijk Base, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 2017. Popescu, C. Review of: Shrinking Cities in Romania, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, 2016. Keywords: Albert Speer; National Socialism; Täterforschung; biography genre; virtual reality exhibition; immersive environment; Pogrom; Istanbul; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Rem Koolhaas; exhibition design; OMA; shrinking cities; deindustrialization; Bucharest; Ceausescu Demystifying Hitler’s Favorite Architect The new, comprehensive, modestly illustrated bio- graphy Albert Speer. Eine deutsche Karriere, is by Magnus Atli Magnus Seelow Brechtken, the deputy director of the Munich Institut für Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Zeitgeschichte and a professor at Ludwig-Maximilians- Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, SE Universität. Brechtken says this biography originates [email protected] from his interest in the questioning of political mem- oirs. It is the result of many years of meticulous archival Magnus Brechtken, Albert Speer. Eine deutsche Karriere, research — the endnotes and bibliography alone comprise Munich: Siedler Verlag, 912 pages, 2017; ISBN: 978-3- 324 pages — unlike the earlier biographies by Sereny 8275-0040-3, with colour and b&w illustrations. and Fest, which rely primarily on interviews with Speer, and the more recent one published by Martin Kitchen Albert Speer (1905–1981) undoubtedly occupies a special (2015), which is mainly based on existing literature. The position in architectural history; his biography differs critical edition of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf by Christian from that of all other 20th-century architects. The impor- Hartmann and others (2016), which has been extensively tance we attribute to him today is due not primarily to commented upon, was also researched at the Institut für his work as an architect but to his role as one of the lead- Zeitgeschichte. ing protagonists of the National Socialist regime, about Brechtken’s central thesis is that Speer exemplifies a which he spoke as a firsthand witness after World War II. ‘type of bourgeois German who consciously became a At the Nuremberg Trials, Speer, despite his tireless com- National Socialist and after 1945 neither had the will nor mitment to the machinery of death and his central role the insight to render an honest account of what he had in Nazi crimes, received only a 20-year prison sentence, done’ (Brechtken 2016: 14). Brechtken regards Speer the which he served until 1966. In the Federal Republic, he same way he thinks of Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942): became a bestselling author and one of the most cited as role models of the ‘uncompromising generation’. This witnesses of the Nazi era. Speer’s portrayal of the Nazi term was coined by Michael Wildt to characterize the type regime and Hitler’s circle shaped post-war historiogra- of leadership elite of the Third Reich embodied by the phy, a contribution that has been almost unchallenged. leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office — well- Even the authors of the two posthumous biographies of educated young men who not only joined the National Speer, Gitta Sereny and Joachim Fest, could not detach Socialists but also crafted a career within that group, themselves from Speer’s point of view on all issues; the and whose uncompromising will knew no norms or lim- biographies are based on conversations with him and its (Wildt 2009). Brechtken says when they melded their (Figure 1) to a great extent ignore archival documents ‘ambition, the will to power, and personal greed’ with and historical research (Sereny 1995; Fest 1999). the National Socialist ‘Rassenkampf’ ideology, it was ‘not Art. 12, page 2 of 12 Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 Figure 1: Cover of Magnus Brechtken’s Albert Speer. Eine deutsche Karriere. a coincidence, but … a calculated consideration in life’. death of Paul Ludwig Troost (1878–1934), managed to Brechtken concludes that for Speer, ‘the will to gain power, become Hitler’s favorite architect and ‘master-builder of to rule and to acquire money [was] a central pattern of his the movement’. Speer is responsible for the buildings of character that shaped his actions until 1945 and drove him the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, the New Reich on throughout his entire life’ (Brechtken 2016: 45). Chancellery in Voßstraße, and, as the general building Brechtken’s biography is divided into two long and more inspector for Berlin from 1937 on, for the monumental re- or less chronologically sorted halves that describe Speer’s planning of the capital. After the fatal plane crash of Fritz life before and after 1945. In the first half, the author Todt (1892–1942) in February 1942, Speer succeeded him very briefly recounts Speer’s privileged youth in his afflu- as minister of armaments. Brechtken thoroughly refutes ent family home in Mannheim and later in Heidelberg. the perspective that Speer was ambivalent towards Hitler He talks about Speer’s early studies in architecture at and National Socialism, as later was disseminated by Universität Karlsruhe, Technische Hochschule München, Speer himself and others. He shows how, already as gen- and Technische Hochschule Berlin, and his work, from eral building inspector, he acted as ‘conquest-manager’ 1927 to 1932, as an assistant to Heinrich Tessenow (1876– and planner for the ‘Endsieg’, and was responsible for the 1950). Brechtken takes care to show that Speer very con- eviction and deportation of tens of thousands of Jews and sciously — rather than almost mistakenly or unknowingly, for forced labour in concentration camps. As minister, he as Speer later claims in his memoirs — joined the National ran the armaments industry, in cooperation with Heinrich Socialists in 1930 and was aware of their murderous goals. Himmler (1900–45) and Fritz Sauckel (1894–1946). In Speer purposefully and relentlessly pursued his career. doing so, Speer skilfully constructed his persona through He focused on gaining proximity to Hitler and, after the morale-boosting slogans and alleged weaponry ‘miracles’, Seelow, AM, Andersen, A, Van Gerrewey, C and Popescu, C: Reviews September 2018 Art. 12, page 3 of 12 and at times even as a potential successor to Hitler. In the they cannot be trusted. Brechtken deconstructs their end, he commanded about 14 million workers in the arma- influence and meticulously uncovers them, almost sen- ments industry — about half of the workforce controlled tence by sentence, as manipulation or fake. He shows by Germany, which included several million forced labour- how Speer even instrumentalized former employees ers and nearly half a million concentration camp inmates. to conceal his activities and to fabricate alibis after the Even when it was apparent that Germany would lose the fact. The influence of Speer’s memoirs would not have war, Speer continued to raise industrial production very been so disastrous if they — like the memoirs of other efficiently, thus extending the war — and the murders in Nazis — had been only apologetic writings whose pur- the death camps and the death of a millionfold people at pose was to obliterate traces and if they had not exerted the front. such great power on the popular perception of the Third The second half of the book deals with Speer’s life after Reich as well as on scientific research. For example, 1945: the Nuremberg Trials, the twenty years of impris- Speer’s alleged absence from Heinrich Himmler’s Poznań onment in Spandau, and his career in post-war Germany speech in October 1943 as evidence of his ignorance of after his discharge in 1966. In court, Speer only selec- the Holocaust, Speer’s alleged plan of a poison gas attack tively admitted to his crimes and, simulating atonement, on Hitler in February 1945, and his alleged refusal of assumed only an abstract overall responsibility in order to Hitler’s ‘Nero’ order in March 1945 have all been picked camouflage his personal responsibility. He constructed his up as historical facts and repeated many times — all of life story anew, presented himself as a tempted artist and which, however, have been debunked by Brechtken as an apolitical technician, and positioned himself as a wit- dubious stories or fairy tales, floated by Speer after the ness and authority on the perished Third Reich. After his war. Brechtken mainly blames Wolf Jobst Siedler and in release, Speer, thanks to numerous interviews and three particular Joachim Fest for this ominous influence. How autobiographical books — Erinnerungen (1969), Spandauer long Fest adheres to the lies fabricated by Speer can be Tagebücher (1975 and 1976) and Der Sklavenstaat. Meine seen from the fact that even in 2005, Fest — in total Auseinandersetzungen mit der SS (1981) — became a cel- ‘ignorance and remoteness from knowledge’ (Brechtken ebrated bestselling author; Erinnerungen alone has been 2017: 555) — maintains that ‘only a few further works translated into 17 languages. These memoirs, produced [on Speer] have appeared since the early 1970s’ and that in collaboration with the publisher Wolf Jobst Siedler the ‘level of knowledge’ essentially hasn’t changed much (1926–2013) and the historian and future editor of since then (Fest 2005: 11). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Joachim Fest (1926–2006), One drawback of this biography is the brevity with take Speer’s mythmaking to a mass-media level. Speer, the which Brechtken investigates Speer’s work as an archi- ‘good Nazi’, provides with his lies an exculpation narra- tect.
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